Journaling

Living with anxiety and depression can be overwhelming and daunting. Anxiety and depression are one of the leading mental health conditions, with over 1M taking their lives each year from depressive states and 1 in 13 people globally suffering anxiety (World Health Organization). In the last few years, research efforts have been ramped up, resulting in a set of proven tools that will help sufferers to fight back.

Journaling has become one of the many outlets for people to express their emotions and feelings, and has been adopted by therapists around the globe looking to create an interactive treatment plan with actionable results.

How Journaling Works

A variety of studies show that journaling has been one of the most effective ways to address conditions like anxiety and depression. But what is the science backing journaling and its methods? And what does journaling involve?

Journaling is the act of expressive writing. Journaling is a written exercise that allows people to express their emotions and feelings in a written format. This has been practiced for many thousands of years and has been effective in helping sufferers of anxiety to alleviate symptoms.

In terms of brain activity, there has been many insights into what happens when your brain is involved in journaling. UCLA psychologists conducted research into this and how expressive writing associated with journaling can improve cognitive functions and improve anxiety.

The study looked into the brain imaging of people during journal therapy. Their research revealed that association of written words help to make an experience or trauma less intense. During the test, patients were shown an angry face, which in turn caused a region of the brain called the amygdala to increase in activity. The amygdala is used to activate alarms in your body to protect yourself. Even when the people were shown these same images subliminally, their amygdala responded.

But once candidates in the study began to associate words directly with the images, their brain’s emotional reaction is reduced. There is a reduced response from the amygdala and you begin to activate the prefrontal region of the brain. Researcher and professor, Matthew D. Lieberman of UCLA rounded this off well by stating this process is “In the same way you hit the brake when you’re driving when you see a yellow light, when you put feelings into words, you seem to be hitting the break on your emotional responses.” Each time you journal, your brain’s reaction can be less intense making it easier to express important or trapped feelings that can lead to better treatment.

Another similar study looked into the chronic worriers and how journaling supported their condition. The researchers, Michigan State and researcher Jason Moser, associate professor of psychology were taking lead. During their study, they measured the brain’s activity as chronic worriers addressed their emotions through expressive writing.

The study was conducted on college students who all were highlighted to have a form of chronic anxiousness. Students were split into two groups and asked to completed a “flanker task” in an attempt to measure their accuracy and speed. The first group, before the task, had to write about their “deepest thoughts and feelings” about the upcoming flanker task for a total of 8 minutes, whilst the other group wrote about what they did the day before.

Whilst the speed and accuracy of the flanker task performed equally for both groups. The group who were tasked with expressive writing delivered more efficient results and used “fewer brain resources”, this was measured using an EEG during the study.

This study showcased the way expressive writing helps to reduce worry and anxiety on the brain. With Moser, one of the researchers on this piece stating “Expressive writing makes the mind work less hard on upcoming stressful tasks” and that the “technique takes the edge off their brains so they can perform the task with a “cooler head.””

Reducing Anxiety and Depression?

Journaling has been used for many centuries as a way to reduce anxiety and depression, but the real research has only been conducted into this over the last 10 years.

Result in more health-promoting immune responses (Booth & Perie, 2002)

Decrease depressive symptoms (Stice, Burton, Bearman & Rohde, 2007)

Studies of all kinds has supported that journaling doesn’t just address any conditions with the mind. There have been many physical benefits of people. Some include; boosting immune functions, improved health outcomes, brain’s working memory, and much more.

Why is Journaling Becoming Popular?

Journaling has become an effective tool for many people but the awareness of this therapy has been on the rise for many years. This has been for many reasons.

The first is word-of-mouth, many journal users tend to express the way that journaling has helped them through social media and face-to-face conversations and thanks to the awareness and focus on mental health in 2018, there has been more people open to trying something new.

Other ways that journaling has risen to power has been the Bullet Journal movement. Bullet journaling is a methodology developed by Ryder Carroll. This method helps people, using a book, to track the past, manage the present and organize the future, something that many people like to get involved in. But the one option is the ability to add your own journaling process within this to help begin a track of your emotions and feelings, like a diary.

Due to the widespread success, journaling has become even more accessible using methods like this. Millions of people have videos and tutorials on how they use a BuJo (Bullet Journal). The final way that journaling has become a popular method has been the fact that therapists are now recommending this more often, above the likes of meditation, thanks to the extensive research available to endorse the act of expressive therapy like this.

How does it compare to Meditation?

In previous studies conducted by the UCLA research team at the start of this article, showcased that mindfulness meditation is effective in reducing a variety of chronic pain conditions, skin diseases, stress-related health conditions and ailments like this.

But thanks to recent exploratory research into expressive writing versus meditation practices, it has been clear that journaling has much stronger roots in research for it to be the highly recommended methodology to include in addressing mental health concerns.

Many therapists and counsellors around the globe are re-considering the amount of expressive writing therapy that they are introducing into sessions and even the balance of mindfulness practices against writing like this.

Meditation is an effective solution, but not as effective as journaling. Journaling trumps meditation when comes to researched scientific benefits and a way forward for people suffering from anxiety and depressive disorders.

You can read all about the scientific limitations to meditation here.

Thanks for reading along today! Feel free to comment with your own opinions on journaling. Has it helped you to address your mental health concerns? Or do you do it every day?

There’s no doubt you’ve heard of the many benefits of meditation already.

We’ve catalogued many of ways meditation can help, including how it can reduce feelings of anxiety for mental health sufferers and discussed why people decide to embark on the meditation journey as part of their daily routines and habits. But meditation isn’t going to solve all of your woes, and, with all things, there are limitations to meditation.

Many of those are scientific limitations. When comparing meditation to other methods recommended by therapists and counsellors, meditation doesn’t fight its corner as well.

What is Meditation? And why do we do it?

Before we begin, let’s get a recap on the historical story of mediation. The practice of meditation has been active for centuries now. With the first recorded practice dating back to 1500 BC, from the Hindu traditions of Vedantism. The Vegas called this practice by “Dhyana” and it was blended into their lives.

The tradition was adopted and shaped by many religions at the time, ranging from Taoist China and Buddhist India with different approaches on the process of meditation.

The term “meditation” itself was coined and referred to many times in the Old Testament as “hāgâ” which in Hebrew translates as “to sigh” or to murmur”. The Latin Bible then translated “hāgâ” into “meditatio” where a 12th-century monk, Guigo the second, who endorsed this. The extensive history of meditation has been documented very well on this article here.

Both non-guided and guided meditation have become habits in our workplace and personal lives now, all around the globe. With retreats, seminars, classes and endless YouTube videos about how to optimise your meditation. Meditation has slowly become a part of our modern, 21-century lives. With the last recorded figure at 18,000,000 US adults (8% of the entire population in 2012) who meditate as part of their routine, there’s no escaping the fact that meditation is on the rise.

Meditation has helped many millions of people cope with tragic losses, stressful periods, anxiety, stress and a variety of life situations without a doubt and the practice should be respected as an effective way to assist in treatment of anxiety, stress and many other mental health conditions. But how much has meditation been proven by scientists? And how does it rival practices like therapeutic journaling?

The Science on Meditation Right Now

Research into mindfulness practices has provided weaker sets of data.

According to research into the mindfulness-based interventions, results showed that “only 9% of research” had been “tested in clinical trials that included a control group”. The lack of control groups causes concerns, this is something many scientists and researchers like to see when comparing the credibility of research.

Don’t get me wrong, there is research out there to support mindfulness practices as being a viable method for coping with anxiety and other similar mental health conditions, however, there’s meta-analysis to prove otherwise. Prominent psychologists spanning across 15 established universities in the US, have concluded that studies on mindfulness and meditation are poorly designed. The reasoning behind this lack of definition of mindfulness activity combined with the lacking of control groups to rule out elements like placebos.

The research studies that involved control groups, and acknowledged the placebo effects showcases moderate effect to the control group, with data pointing to stress being the most addressed condition. An insight from this shows that mindfulness research right now lacks the supporting evidence it needs to be a leading recommendation, whereas, the likes of therapeutic writing has been thriving in studies posted recently.

Meditation vs Therapeutic Writing

Both of these practices, meditation and therapeutic journaling or writing, have been endorsed by therapists for many years now. Both deliver positive results when it comes to treatment and have a lot of practical value as part of a daily routine.

When it comes to research, however, therapeutic writing cleans up. With extensive research providing more than double the amount of studies done on therapeutic writing since 2010.
But what is therapeutic writing? And what is involved in the practice?

Therapeutic writing, also known as writing therapy, is used as a form of expressive therapy. The writing is the act of writing and processing expressive thoughts into written words. It’s proven to directly impact both physical and psychological health.
The practice has been proven, time and time again, to be effective at reducing symptoms of mental health conditions. Not many people compare the likes of meditation and therapeutic writing as competitive recommendations. Writing about traumatic experiences, memories, thoughts and the events of the day is one of the most reflective ways to absorb and ponder on your actions surrounding each event.

This form of expressive writing can be used as an individual or as a group, but is traditionally recommended as a piece of homework or activity during therapy treatments.

There is a common misperception amongst people, therapists, counsellors and even government parties that mindfulness and meditation have compelling evidence to support it as a recommended practice in therapeutic interventions.

Many people make a counter-argument that therapeutic writing could be too personal and for those who shut things out, won’t submit. But research from Rime in 1995, suggests that expressing these thoughts and feelings come naturally, stating in his research:

“During aversive events, many people have a strong urge to express their thoughts and feelings related to the events. This urge may be motivated by the comfort associated with ventilation or it may reflect an attempt to make sense of a negative event or validate one’s feelings through social sharing.”
The extensive research into this has showcased that the disclosure about stressful or traumatic events can actually improve physical and psychological well being.(Pennebaker, 1989, 1993; Smyth, 1996).

Here’s some of the proven scientific advantages of therapeutic writing:

Result in more health-promoting immune responses (Booth & Perie, 2002)

Decrease depressive symptoms (Stice, Burton, Bearman & Rohde, 2007)

Further research, conducted by universities of Michigan & South Carolina (2013), shares the significant decreases in depression scores in an experimental group over 5 days into the research program. Scores were conducted by the formalised questionnaire sheet known as the Beck Depression Inventory & Patient Health Questionnaire Score.

During the research study, the group average dropped to 9 points on the BDI and over 5 points on the PHQ, which were significant changes to the control group. After the study, participants remarked about feeling better and on the final day, one participant even wrote about how much better she felt in her therapeutic journaling session.

These are a few a of the ways that therapeutic writing has been able to address both psychological and physical symptoms. Many therapists and counselors around the globe are re-considering the amount of expressive writing therapy that they are introducing into sessions and even the balance of mindfulness practices against writing like this. With an extensive list of research and a backing from many credible studies, therapeutic writing addresses many of the widely known issues associated with mental health conditions.

Does Meditation Challenge Therapeutic Writing?

The short answer is no.

Meditation currently as a mindfulness practice doesn’t have enough supportive research data and studies to suggest it is better than therapeutic writing. We see this from the amount of research pieces posted in the last 10 years. Despite, its current popularity in the western society, when it comes to the ground data on these, writing trumps meditation.

Therapeutic writing has plenty of compelling evidence, insightful benefits and symptom addressing abilities if conducted during treatment or individually outside of treatment. If you’re brand new to therapeutic writing, you can get started instantly with Therachat, a way to get started with expressive writing for your own needs.

Let us know in the comments how you compare meditation and expressive writing? We’d love to hear which one worked for you.

Journaling, commonly known as a journal writing consists of a short writing practice that can be continued day to day. Keeping a journal has become very popular in the mental health community for its therapeutic use during treatment.

Journal therapy helps clients keep track of their emotions, thoughts and situations through documented exercises and prompts. The use of a journal creates a reflective environment and helps clients voice concerns or things on their minds.

Therapists have been increasing their recommendations of journal therapy in recent years thanks to the long list of benefits supporting it. One of the initial things that attract therapists to endorse journal therapy is the ease of set-up and ability to guide clients between sessions in writing about specific things.

Journal therapy helps clients capture emotions, analyze concerns and commence a dialogue with themselves, which helps their therapist to decipher what’s been going on outside of sessions with the client and their condition.

Still not convinced?! Let’s explore the science behind journaling during treatment.

The Science Behind Journal Therapy

The science behind journal therapy continues to uncover the mental health benefits of routinely journaling. And luckily the practice can be applied for a variety of conditions including the following;

Anxiety Disorders

Depression

Low self-esteem

Relationship issues

OCD conditions

Grief

Chronic Illness

Substance abuse

Journal therapy alone won’t cure a client’s condition, it’s the treatment as a whole that helps for a steady recovery. However there’s a number of ways how journal therapy supports treatment by uncovering a wide variety of concerns of clients.

What Do Studies Show?

A study of the benefits of writing from the Journal of the American Medical Association (Vol. 281, No. 14) showcased that there’s more to journal therapy than meets the eye. 107 patients suffering from asthma and rheumatoid arthritis wrote for 20-minutes on each of three consecutive days, 71 of them covering topics of stressful events and the 37 remaining covered emotionally neutral subjects of their day plans.

The next 4 months after the writing exercise, 70 of the patients showed improvement on objective, clinical evaluations.

In addition, those who wrote about stress improved more and deteriorated less, than controls for both diseases. “So writing helped patients get better, and also kept them from getting worse,” says Smyth.

Extensive studies continue to show the benefits of writing about your experiences during the day. A study from the University of California took 20 volunteers to a lab for a brain scan. Before this scan, the volunteers were asked to spend 20-minutes per day writing, for the four days before the scan with 10 of the candidates writing about an emotional experience, the others about something neutral.

The science from the brain scan proved that the emotions-lead writing experience induced relaxed neural activity in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (element of the brain).

One more extensive study showed the effects on recovery. The study in 2003 found that 76% of adults who spent 20-minutes a day journaling three days consecutively before a medical biopsy were healed in full 11 days later.

Meanwhile, 58% of the control group had yet to recover. The results indicated that with just one hour of writing about an emotion experience helped candidates to reduce stress levels and understand the events of the situation.

Getting Started with a Journal

So, your clients are open to engaging with a journal. Where do you start?!

This is great news! Any additional ways you can engage your clients between sessions, will help treatment. The positive thing about journal therapy is it takes many shapes, so the act can be used in a multitude of different ways.

Many therapists like clients to use journal therapy for their out of session time. Having clients start their therapeutic writing experience when they have the time, can promote journaling to become a positive, healthy routine.

Here’s a list of recommendations:

Start by recommending the inclusion of journal therapy during sessions. Explain the benefits of how therapeutic journaling has improved many treatments and increased the longevity of the recovery post-therapy.

Introduce an initial piece of homework. Between sessions set your client a 10-minute writing activity to kick things off. 10-minutes is a healthy-sized introductory period of writing they can get started with.

Each session review the act and benefits of journal therapy. Re-evaluating, why this is beneficial practice, will increase homework compliance and engagement rates with your client.

Set more complex homework exercises that will test their insights. Activities like this will promote in-session discussions and cement their commitment outside of sessions. You can find recommendations listed below.

Don’t hesitate to add a digital tool to the mix that can help both you and your clients practice journaling. With Therachat you can send your clients journal prompts at any time and your clients will be reminded to do so. A tool like Therachat will also show you the journal entries immediately so you can follow along with your client in realtime and use that info to have more effective sessions.

Journal Therapy Exercises

So, now you’ve started out with a basic practice of 10-minutes.

You’ll be looking to ramp up your use of the practice with your clients outside of therapy sessions. Remember, keeping things relevant and interactive with clients will keep them progressing towards their end goal.

These are some of the best ways to use journal therapy:

Routine Entries – The first and easiest practice is to ask your client to set a time aside every single day that they can add to their journal. A routine practice will help to improve the more advanced exercises but help to build your clients confidence around the topic of journaling. Setting a limit of 10-20 minutes of emotional writing will help to get things started as they bring this into treatment.

Letter Writing – The act of letter writing can be a good way to start a journal entry. Writing letters to the people in your life that you have an emotional connection with can help to release stress and promote reflective practices. This is something to discuss with your client and work out whether it is suitable. Positive or negative entries will help express your emotions.

Dialogue – Using dialogue can help to promote awareness of other people’s state of mind. Asking your client to take the role of someone and writing about how they would react can help to create a two-way conversation that the client can review and be aware of emotional reactions. This can promote social learning and help anxiety as they try to change perspective.

Photo Entries – Using photographs to start an entry can be a great way to write in an emotional manner. By having a photo to speak to in your journal can help bring up emotional situations. Maybe it’s a positive photo that you can share about how you felt in that current state or one that makes you feel pressured or anxiety, all of these will help produce a reflective piece of writing.

Prompts – An easy way to get your client started. Bringing a range of prompts for their journal can help them to answer complex emotional questions without much hassle. Prompts like “The happiest times in my life have been…” or “The most emotional day of my life was…” will help to test their emotional state and get the ball rolling as they start out.

Listicles – One that doesn’t take too long but many clients enjoy, starting a listicle. Asking a client to list the “Top 10 Things They Like…” or “The Top 100 Things They Hate” can help them to list one word or short sentence answers and flag many issues they are having. Being grateful or providing issues in this format can provide you as the therapist a condensed list of talking points with your client.

Becoming a Journal Master

The act of therapeutic journaling will take time to master and your clients will start to benefit across a longer period of time. Like many studies show; the extensive use of journaling can help and promote recovery, so keeping it in the client’s mind as a healthy routine practice will boost outcomes.

On a final note, journaling can provide so much to your clients. Reviewing it as part of your practice will become one of your best decisions of the year and integrating as part of your homework compliance will help to arrive at your client’s destination with a stronger footing.

Let us know whether you’ve used journaling in therapy. We’d love to hear your stories about what has worked, what hasn’t and how you go about endorsing the use of journal therapy.

Share this:

According to Psychology Today, “One of the most useful things you can do to combat stress and anxiety is to keep a running record of your thoughts on paper. There’s simply no better way to learn about your thought processes than to write them down.” Dr. Maggie Perry, the founder of Huddle.Care, agrees. Dr. Perry says that quick, in-the-moment journal can be extremely beneficial to someone with anxiety.

“When inklings of anxiety begin to arise, take a step back, consider all aspects of these sensations and journal about them as they happen. This is a good technique for reconciling your anxious feelings with what you’ve learned about your anxiety and what you know to be true,” says Dr. Perry.

In other words, do not believe everything you feel.

Writing a journal to examine and challenge feelings

Writing a journal provides an opportunity to examine and challenge your feelings. Dr. Perry adds that “there are other times, like life transitions, in which just having someone write for thirty minutes each morning about what they think and feel about that transition will bring down their stress, bring down their anxiety, and make them more resilient against depression because they are more self-aware.”

Journal entries as self-reflection

Kaia Kordic, a licensed MFT who splits her time between her private practice and the county foster care services, believes that journaling and self-reflection are some of the most proactive and healthiest ways to practice self-awareness.

“Journaling helps develop that awareness muscle. If a client reflects on her fight with the boyfriend only during the session, progress will take a lot longer. But, if she journals about it or tracks symptoms and conflicts throughout the week, she will become aware of her choices, actions, and experiences sooner.” – Kaia Kordic, Marriage and Family Therapist

Kaia recommends test-driving Therachat, a new tool that allows clients to journal on their phones. It’s available to clients and therapists interested in improving therapy outcomes. “Therachat is going to be really helpful for clients who need the self-reflection process in between therapy sessions,” says Kaia. “The insights and analysis it provides to therapists are also going to be helpful. It is one thing to see someone’s memo on their phone,‘ I’m anxious today, I’m not anxious today,’ but to see their mood patterns throughout the week in a clean format and be able to focus on important topics together is another. I would imagine that people would get better faster.”